Sergei Adian (1/1/31-4/5/20)

Sergei Ivanovich Adian

Born: 1 January 1931 in Kushchi, Dashkesan District, Azerbaijan Soviet Republic

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Sergei Ivanovich Adian was born in Kushchi, a mountain village forty kilometres from the city ofKirovabad (now Gjanja). His father, Ivan Arakelovich Adiyan, was born the son of a shepherd in 1908. Nothaving the opportunity to finish secondary school, Ivan became a carpenter and worked on local buildingsites. In 1930 he married Lusik, the 17-year-old daughter of a local farmer, Konstantin Truziyan. Two yearslater Sergei's parents moved to Kirovabad, where Ivan worked as a carpenter. Initially they rented a room,and it was only at the end of the 1930s that the father bought a plot of land in the centre of the city and builta small house with one room, a porch, and a little cellar. Being a builder, Ivan planned to add a second floorto the house, but this plan was disrupted by the war. By that time there were already four children in thefamily. The mother did not work, but the parents completed their secondary education studies at anArmenian evening school for labourers. Although at the time Sergei, like his parents, did not speak Russian,he was sent in 1938 to study at the Russian secondary school no. 11 in Kirovabad. His father insisted onthat, since he believed that after finishing the school it would be easier for his son to get a higher education.And so from his very first year in school young Sergei had to develop persistence and diligence. Hisproblems with Russian were overcome by the end of this first year.

In 1941, at the very beginning of the war, Sergei's father was conscripted. After a short training coursesomewhere in the northern Caucasus, he was sent to the front. There he did not survive for long and hisfamily received notice that he was missing. Sergei's mother got a job selling mineral water in a kiosk, and10-year-old Sergei effectively became the head of the household, helping his mother keep house and bringup his two younger brothers Semik (8 years old) and Yurik (3), and his sister Svetlana (6). There were goodand, more importantly, exacting teachers in the school Sergei attended. His mathematical talent soonbecame apparent. Once, in the fourth grade, the teacher asked every student to solve one problem from aproblem book, and she walked between the rows monitoring progress. While everybody else was stillworking hard on the first problem, Sergei had already solved several of them. The teacher was pleased andwent on with the experiment until the end of the lesson. As a result, Sergei solved 40 problems in onelesson. Another interesting episode took place in the tenth and last grade. Before the spring break, as part ofpreparation for final examinations, another teacher of mathematics, the school headmaster, gave his studentshomework in solid geometry based on trigonometric formulae from the popular problem book by Rybkin.The teacher asked everyone to solve only a couple of problems from each section, and he was immenselysurprised when one of the students, Sergei Adian, handed him a thick notebook with complete solutions,

1.

drawings included, of all the problems from Rybkin's book! It is not surprising that the EducationDepartment of Kirovabad submitted to Baku, the capital of the Azerbaijan Republic, a petition to sendSergei Adian to Moscow State University (MSU) to continue his education after completing his secondaryschool studies. But in Baku his name was crossed off the list. Following his headmaster's recommendation,Sergei then went to Erevan intending to enter Erevan University. But 'national politics' prevented himregistering because prospective students were supposed to pass a written examination in Armenian, and theArmenian alphabet was certainly not a subject taught in a Russian school located in Azerbaijan. Finally, in1948 Adian had to enter the Russian Pedagogical Institute of Erevan. His education there lasted only oneyear. After that he and others among the best students in Erevan were sent to continue their studies inMoscow. This action was organised by the USSR Ministry of Education, and every student was transferredto an institution similar to the one he was taken from. As a consequence, Adian was refused admission toMSU, so again for technical reasons, another attempt to enter there failed. However, he later said:-

I should admit that at that time I was extremely lucky: I was not able to go to MSU. As fatewilled, I went to the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute (MSPI), where I met Petr SergeevichNovikov, and he introduced me to his wife Lyudmila Vsevolodovna ...

If ever there was an encounter that could be called fortunate, it was the meeting of Adian and his futureteacher, mentor, and friend (in spite of the difference in age) Petr Sergeevich Novikov. Adian started hisresearch work at MSPI, with Novikov as his advisor, in the field of the descriptive theory of functions. Inhis first work as a student in 1950, he proved that the graph of a function f (x) of a real variable satisfyingthe functional equation f (x + y) = f (x) + f (y) and having discontinuities is dense in the plane. (Clearly, allcontinuous solutions of the equation are linear functions.) This result was not published at the time. It iscurious that about 25 years later the American mathematician Edwin Hewitt from Seattle gave preprints ofsome of his papers to Adian during a visit to MSU, one of which was devoted to exactly the same result,which was published by Hewitt much later.

In his graduate work in 1953 relating to the theory of discontinuous functions, Adian constructed examplesof semicontinuous functions on the interval [0, 1] that, for any partition of the interval into a countablenumber of subsets Ei, have discontinuities on at least one of the subsets upon restriction to this subset. Thiscontribution also was not published right away. In 1958, following a proposal of Adian, the work waspublished in the Scientific Notes of MSPI as joint work with Novikov.

In the autumn of 1954, Novikov suggested to Adian (then in his third year of graduate study) that he workon the word problem for finitely presented groups, noting that though Adian's results already obtained in thetheory of functions were certainly enough for a Ph.D. thesis, this new problem was more interesting, wasmentioned in Kurosh's monograph, and was a difficult problem that had resisted solution by Novikov'smethods. In suggesting it, Novikov considered the fact that Adian had already mastered thoroughly themethods of Novikov's proof, not yet published, of the unsolvability of the word problem. By the beginningof 1955 Adian had managed to prove the undecidability of practically all non-trivial invariant groupproperties, including the undecidability of being isomorphic to a fixed group G, for any group G. Theseresults made up his Ph.D. thesis, defended in 1955 and first published the same year (the full text of theproof was published two years later). This is one of the most remarkable, beautiful, and general results inalgorithmic group theory and is now known as the Adian-Rabin theorem (Michael O Rabin published asimpler proof of the result some years later).

Of course, the history of mathematics offers quite a few other examples of work of undergraduate orgraduate students which later became classical results in their fields. However, what distinguishes the firstpublished work by Adian even in this brilliant company is its completeness. In spite of numerous attempts,nobody has added anything fundamentally new to the results during the past 50 years. For this work Adianwas awarded the Moscow Mathematical Society Prize in 1956 and the Chebyshev Prize of the Soviet

Academy of Sciences in 1963. It should be noted that A S Esenin-Volpin, one of the official opponents ofAdian's Ph.D. thesis, after reading and verifying the thesis, made a special trip to Novikov's dacha in thesummer of 1955 to convince him that such work merited a D.Sc. degree. Novikov answered that there wasnothing to be concerned about: he did not doubt that Adian would write another work for his D.Sc.dissertation. And the first opponent, Anatoly Ivanovich Malcev, proposed that the Academic Council ofMSPI, where the defence was taking place, should call special attention to the outstanding level of thework.

After completing his graduate studies, Adian worked for several years (in close cooperation with Novikov)as an assistant professor in the Mathematical Analysis Department of MSPI. And in 1957 an eventhappened which completely changed life for both him and his teacher, the Department of MathematicalLogic was created in the Steklov Mathematical Institute (MIAN), and Novikov was invited to lead it. Adianbecame one of the first members of this new department, and his subsequent research career was closelyconnected with it. Furthermore, the collaboration between Novikov and Adian on the Burnside problemstarted (about 1960) already within the precincts of MIAN. In 1960, at the insistence of Novikov and hiswife Lyudmila Keldysh, Adian settled down to work on the Burnside problem. Completing the project tookintensive efforts from both collaborators in the course of eight years, and in 1968 their famous paper Infiniteperiodic groups appeared, containing a negative solution of the problem for all odd periods n > 4381, andhence for all multiples of those odd integers as well. Adian published the classic monograph The Burnsideproblem and identities in groups (Russian) in 1975 (an English translation was published four years later).

In 1965, at the invitation of A A Markov, Adian also took a second position, in the Department ofMathematical Logic at MSU. His work there continues to ensure a close and fruitful collaboration of thedepartment with the Department of Mathematical Logic at MIAN. In 1973, because of a serious illness ofNovikov and at Novikov's personal request supported by Vinogradov, the director of MIAN, Adian wasappointed head of the department. This appointment happened despite the fact that neither Adian norNovikov were members of the Communist Party. The Department of Mathematical Logic in the Faculty ofMechanics and Mathematics at MSU went through a similar period of turbulence, for similar reasons, whenthe head of the department, A A Markov, fell sick at the end of the 1970s. In many respects due to theenergy, integrity, and diplomatic skills of Adian, this situation was also resolved favourably for thedepartment.

Adian has always devoted much attention to strengthening the Department of Mathematical Logic atMIAN, to training researchers in the Department of Mathematical Logic at MSU, and to developing newconnections between these two related groups. He has had great success in this direction. Under hisguidance more than thirty Ph.D. and D.Sc. dissertations have been written. His students are prominentresearchers in algebra, mathematical logic, and computational complexity theory. After finishing at MSU,the strongest of them transferred to positions in the Department of Mathematical Logic at MIAN, whichunder his leadership became one of the most prominent and respected research centres in logic.

In the Department of Mathematical Logic at MSU Adian has for many years led a seminar on algorithmicproblems of algebra and logic, in addition to sharing leadership of the department's main seminar with V AUspenskii. Several times he has also given mandatory lecture courses in mathematical logic for the first andfourth years, and special lecture courses on algorithmic problems of algebra and on infinite periodic groups.Adian is in essence the creator and leader of a whole research school in mathematical logic and algorithmicproblems of algebra. Besides his productive research and teaching activities, Adian is active in editorial andorganizational work. As long ago as the end of 1950s, S M Nikol'skii invited Adian, at the suggestion ofNovikov, to edit the section on mathematical logic in Referativnyi Zhurnal: Matematika, the Russianmathematical review journal, because there was then a huge backlog of articles to be reviewed. In theshortest possible time Adian rectified the situation there with respect to logic by mobilizing almost all his

colleagues for the thankless task of writing reviews (for only a paltry fee). At about the same time, he drewattention to the fact that a remarkable textbook on mathematical logic written by Novikov had not beenpublished, and that undergraduate and graduate students had to read a typescript. Novikov explained thatthe publishing house Fizmatgiz had rejected the manuscript because they had not liked the frequent use ofthe term Hilbert formalism in the preface: this was regarded as propaganda for a harmful bourgeoisphilosophical theory. Novikov planned to return the advance of his fee to the publishers. Adian told him thatthis was simply unacceptable and began to help in revising and editing the book. He declined Novikov'soffer that he should be coauthor, and about half a year later the first edition of Novikov's textbook onmathematical logic appeared. The book was subsequently translated into several foreign languages.

For many years Adian was the head of the Specialized Scientific Council of Vysshaya AttestatsionnayaKomissiya (VAK, the Higher Certification Commission) concerned with defence of D.Sc. dissertations inmathematical logic, algebra, number theory, geometry, and topology, first as the vice-chairman and later,after the death of Vinogradov, as the chairman. In 1991 he asked to be relieved of the chairman position inview of his 60th birthday. However, when the directorate of MIAN proposed for this post a person whomanifestly was not suitable, Adian could not reconcile himself with this and declared that he was preparedto remain in the position until a more appropriate successor was proposed. Finally, a candidate was chosenwho was unanimously supported by the heads and the Division of Mathematics, and he was confirmed byVAK. Of course, such stands in life brought much trouble to Adian (the lateness in his being elected amember of the Academy was mostly due to his having such a 'high profile') and led to him making manyenemies. However, the same strains of character have allowed him to acquire true friends among people oflike mind who are impressed by his directness and open temperament. Adian did not wish to recognisegovernment restrictions on human relations as necessary even at a time when this was fraught with variousrisks.

Even the people closest to Adian would probably not be so bold as to call him an easy person to work with.Everybody who has ever dealt with him knows his adherence to principles and his uncompromising naturewith respect to quite diverse questions, as well as his careful attention to details. However, those who havebeen in closer contact with him (and the authors of the present note belong to this list) well know anotheraspect. In the end it almost always happens, in some incomprehensible way, that Adian has in fact beenright from the very beginning. And his arguments have been at least worth considering always, withoutexception.

Adian has three adult children, two daughters and one son. His son Ivan graduated from the Faculty ofMechanics and Mathematics at MSU. The older daughter Vera graduated with honours from the Faculty ofPhilology of MSU and in recent years has taught Russian on contract in London. The younger daughterLena graduated from the S G Stroganov Moscow State University of Arts and Industrial Design (CeramicsDepartment). She does painting and ceramic arts and has displayed her works often at the Central House ofArtists and at exhibitions of young Russian artists; very recently she was elected a member of the Union ofArtists of the Russian Federation.

Article by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson based on reference [3] on the recommendation of LevBeklemishev

List of References (3 books/articles)

Mathematicians born in the same country

Other Web sites

Sergei Adian (1931-2020)

The word problem and Applications

Review of covering spaces 1.Free products, free products with amalgamation, HNN 2.Extensions. Bass-Serre theory 3.Presentations of groups, statement of the word problem 4.Dehn function. 5.Examples: Free groups, surface groups, Heisenberg 6.group, Baumslag-Solitar group, Gersten’s group and more. Van Kampen’s theorem and when fundamental groups 7.don’t inject. (Relevant to Adian-Rabin theorem) Turing machines 8.Post’s theorem 9.

11. Introduction to Van Kampen diagrams and unsolvable word problem (Theorem of Boone-NovIkov) 12. Gromov’s theorem on closed geodesics (application to differential geometry) 13. Higman’ s theorem (and Universal groups) 14. Adian-Rabin theorem (Markov properties) 15. Homology of groups and Gordon’s theorem 16. Hopf exact sequence and Kervaire’s theorem. 17. Universal Central extensions and S. Novikov’s theorem 18. Other unsolvable topological problems (including non-c.e. Sets); 19. Sobolev homology? References: Rotman, Theory of Groups (GTM) Stillwell, The word problem, Bull AMS Algorithmic and classification problems in Group theory (Baumslag and Miller, editors, MSRI Publication) Serre and Kilmer, Trees (Springer) and Articles by Gersten and Riley on Dehn Functions Brown, Cohomology of Groups (GTM) Weinberger, Computers, Rigidity and Moduli (PUP)

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